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Weather Eye: snow stopping play

If you think we are having a cold wet June, then count yourself lucky, it was much worse in 1975

Paul Simons

June 13 2012, 1:01am, The Times

This seems to be shocking weather for early summer, and apart from lashings of wind and rain, this month has also been cool. The temperature so far has been 1C (1.8F) below normal in Central England, and there is little sign of conditions warming soon.

But far worse has happened in the past. In 1975 May was a thoroughly chilly month before June blew in with an Arctic blast. On June 2 Gleneagles, Perthshire, saw the temperature sink to minus 3.3C (26F), more akin to winter than early summer, and skiers at Aviemore could not believe their luck when a blizzard replenished the slopes with a thick covering of snow.

The cold air swept south into England, and for the first time in the history…